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Stephen Weiss Elevated to Senior Member, IEEE

June 1, 2017

The Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) has elevated Stephen Weiss to Senior Member grade. The IEEE requires significant contributions to the field as well as reference letters from three existing Senior Member grade peers. Stephen has been a practicing electrical engineer (EE) for more than thirty years and has also taught a graduate level telecommunications transmission course at Barry University in Miami. As the engineering lead at CWA he has worked on a myriad of communication systems for a variety of clients across North America.

Todd Ellis Joins CWA

May 1, 2017

Todd Ellis, PMP has joined Clifton, Weiss & Associates as their Manager of RF and Systems Integration. Mr. Ellis has over 30 years of experience in telecommunications, marketing, and business planning. He has worked with numerous cooperative, municipal, and investor-owned electric, water and gas utilities both in North America and abroad.

Mr. Ellis has done extensive RF planning and design work relating to a Positive Train Control (PTC) system for the world's largest passenger railroad. He has direct experience in Smart Grid systems, SCADA, and back office software system integration. He has an extensive communications background including propagation prediction, design, system integration, and product development for wireless and fiber optic systems. A member of the IEEE and the author of 17 different articles for various periodicals, Mr. Ellis also holds a patent for intelligent street lighting. Mr. Ellis and his wife Stacey reside in nearby Huntingdon Valley, PA.

June 28, 2018

A formal patent application has been filed for which Todd Ellis is listed as a co-inventor. The invention is entitled, “Meter Reading Schema to Enhance System Functionality”. In brief, microgrids are becoming more important for energy distribution but lack the ability to communicate between generation and consumption resources. By creating an extended communications language, it is possible to islanded field generation (such as generators, solar, etc.) and directly associate consumption of energy via communication with electric meters. Today’s electric distribution systems rely on centralized substation and metering systems; if those systems are inoperable, there’s no convenient way to leverage distributed energy resources (DERs) without an interoperable communications network. This invention not only solves this problem but increases the resiliency of power distribution networks in the event of natural or man-made disasters. The patent application number is US20180094948A1; it also lists the co-inventor as David Haynes. The patent application has been assigned to Aclara Technologies, LLC.

Todd was also the lead inventor for patent US8860561B2, Method and Apparatus for Distributed Lighting Control. This invention is considered the “master patent” for how streetlights can be controlled for load sheading and emergency signaling applications. This patent was assigned to Sensus USA inc.